Paraview is a open source visualisation tool, which I stumbled upon a while ago. It is based on the VTK software system and works on multiple platforms (including Windows and OSX). I have mostly used the software for the visualisation of stress analyses, including complex surfaces and vector data, and for this Paraview has been a great tool. In the beginning the philosophy behind the interface may seem a bit non-intuitive, but after a few days of playing around with it I had to admit that the truth is quite the opposite - the pipeline-structure and usage of sources and filters is actually very logical and transparent. So I recommend to be patient with this tool in the beginning - it is definitely worthwhile! As a geologist working much with Matlab and CAD-based environment, the file formats supported by Paraview are in general a bit clumsy, but analyses done with Matlab can be successfully imported by using the csv-format. For 3D CAD geometries the situation is more difficult as the dwg and dxf files are not supported currently by Paraview. But there is a way around it - there is a spin-off of Paraview, called ParaviewGeo, which supports dxf-files and, in addition, several other file formats used by common 3D modeling environments. In ParaviewGeo, dxf files can be saved for example to stl-format, which can then be imported to Paraview. A bit complex perhaps, but works!
I'll post some images of my with Paraview work soon, but in the meanwhile I recommend to give this tool a test run!
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